Congress Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Sunday hit out at Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for double-crossing the people of Bengal by feigning friendship with Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance on one hand and breaking bread with BJP leaders Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath on the other.
Severely criticising the Chief Minister for joining President Droupadi Murmu’s party and sharing the same dinner table with Home Minister Amit Shah and her Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath, the senior Congress leader asked “what message she is trying to give whom… what message she is leaving for the people of Bengal and what message she is carrying for the BJP leaders who she publicly criticizes.”
Chowdhury who is also the Bengal Pradesh Congress president said, “we have reports that the Chief Minister shared the same dinner table with Amit Shah and Yogi Adiytanath … but we do not have information about what transpired there.” Wondering as to “what urgency she had to reach Delhi a day ahead of the dinner and what urgency she had to share the same table with top BJP leaders,” the Behrampore MP said, “she was not obliged to join the Presidential dinner … no one had placed a sword at her neck … still seemed more than eager to join the party where Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, an important constituent of the INDIA alliance was not invited … what urgency she had to join a dinner which was avoided by many other Chief Ministers … this smacks of something.”
Chowdhury who was visiting Raninagar of Murshidabad his home district where two local leaders on Sunday joined the TMC — a day after the workers of the two parties had a bloody face-off on Saturday — alleged who in Bengal Banerjee police force and her party men were forcing the Congressmen to join the TMC and in Delhi she was talking of alliance and expecting Congress’ support in the coming
parliamentary elections. Like Chowdhury the Left which too is an INDIA constituent also attacked Banerjee for joining the presidential dinner wondering how she could join a party which she had criticized a day before.
Referring to Banerjee’s scathing attack on the BJP Government for trying to divert attention from the country’s burning issues by raking up a controversy in the name of renaming India as Bharat, CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakrabarty said “it is for Mamata Banerjee to explain why she joined a party which was organised in the name of President of Bharat — an act of the central Government which she had criticized barely 24 hours before… it simply makes clear her disloyalty towards the causes she sometimes feigns to stand for … she will have to explain this.”
The CPI(M) leader also alleged that the Chief Minister’s Delhi visit at a time when some of her senior party leaders and even some of his family members were on the verge of arrest in the multi-crore recruitment scam had much more in it that met the bare eye.
“Top TMC leaders are facing arrest in the recruitment scam … and at this time she is seen in Delhi … she will have to explain it or else the people will understand what they should,” Chakrabarty said.
TMC leader and MP Shantanu Sen however put “little importance” to what “two parties with zero” seats in the State Assembly said. “Two zeroes make a bigger zero … hence it is better not to talk much about zero,” he said.